Keeping track of financial information – including the all-important ticket sales- led the Cricket World Cup 2015 Limited organising committee to explore applications that could host data in one place.
Because the tournament is being held in Australia and New Zealand, the ability to report in different currencies was important.
Cricket World Cup 2015 financial controller Luke Spano said it looked at different systems in 2013 before selecting SAP Business One.
He wanted the application up and running in six weeks because the organising committee was operating to tight deadlines.
As the Cricket World Cup 2015 committee was only going to be around for three years, Spano did not need a complicated system which would take a long time to implement. The system went live in June 2013.
“All of our financial data is contained in the system. One of our biggest expenditures is travel and accommodation given we have 14 teams travelling between 14 host cities over a six week period,” he said.
The most important information for Spano is ticketing data. The committee receives data every night from its ticketing provider which is uploaded into SAP.
“Our target from day one has been 1 million bums on seats. We are well on track to meet that [target] with seven games remaining,” he said.
For example, 85,000 fans turned up at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to watch India play South Africa. Spano can also keep track of email direct marketing (EDMs) that have been sent out overnight to see how these performed and where there has been uptake.
“For example, if we have done an EDM to all of the [cricket] venue members, have we seen an uptake in their ticket sales?”
When the tournament wraps up on 29 March, the data will be handed over to Cricket Australia and Cricket New Zealand.
“I daresay they will look at the ticketing data to benchmark where they want to go and how they want to market to different host cities,” he said.
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